


A Contract Is Forever

by SmexyWatermelon



Series: Crazy Vaulters and Tattered Ferrymen [2]
Category: Fallout (Video Games), Fallout 3
Genre: Contracts, Eventual Fluff, Eventual Relationships, F/M, Oneshot, Smooching, why is so hard to live with grumpus
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-10
Updated: 2017-03-10
Packaged: 2018-10-02 10:45:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,784
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10216280
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SmexyWatermelon/pseuds/SmexyWatermelon
Summary: Charon can't sleep more than a couple of hours per night. Luckily for him, his mistress can't help but argue with him about his contract at all hours of day.Mild sentimental relationship ensues.





	

He woke up hours before dawn, insomnia being one of his oldest friends.

He silently sat on the bed: he had heard his mistress returning the previous night from her scavenging, but he hadn’t greeted her. She was always pissed if he didn’t get his rest. Which, by the way, he never got, but that was an issue for another time.

He mechanically picks the shotgun laying at the foot of the bed: he always felt safer with it around. He holds it in his hands, just above his lap, closing his eyes and caressing the smooth metal surface, which somehow always manages to relax him a bit.  
He sits back on the bed without making a noise, his head resting against the thin metal wall that lets him hear her lightly snoring in the adjacent room, somehow relaxing him as well.

He wishes he could fall back to sleep again, but he knows it’s an almost impossible task: every time he closes his eyelids long forgotten faces and battles and explosions all appear again in front of him, and the only upside to all this is that sometimes he just sees his new mistress taking care of him.

His eyes open again after a short while, already giving up on the idea of trying to sleep: he skims around the room and the furniture made of rolled section, until his gaze lays on the well known piece of folded paper laying on top of the bedside table standing at his side.  
At first he just blinks at it, thinking he must be mistaken, but as his hand reaches for it he realizes the piece of paper he was holding was indeed his contract.

He stands up, discarding the shotgun on the bed, heavy steps getting out of his room and inside his mistress’ one. He opens the door, letting the light coming from the living room flood inside, speaking just after hearing an annoyed groan coming from Lone, who was now writhing under the covers of the bed.  
“Why did you leave this there?” he bluntly asks, holding out towards her the folded contract in his hand.

“C-charon? What the heck-“ she brushes her eye with the back of her hand “What hour is it?”  
He takes in a deep breath, taking two big steps towards her, his body projecting a big shadow on top of hers. “Why did you leave the contract in my room?” Her jet black irises set first on the piece of paper and then back on him, finally understanding what this was about.  
She digs her palms in the mattress, sitting up: a lopsided smile appears on her lips, mocking him as usual, but there’s something soft in her gaze as she looks up at him. “You don’t get it?”  
“No, I don’t.” He doesn’t even want to try to humor her: there were rules, rules she had been already breaking for the most part.  
“Swift as always…” she mumbles undertone, pushing herself on her feet and standing up in front of the ghoul.

“I wanted to give it back to you.” She simply explains, as if it could had been _that_ easy.  
“No. I-it doesn’t work like that.” It was the first time since they had met Maya could tell there was uncertainty in the ghoul’s voice.  
“You’ve paid for my services-“ “And you saved my life more times than I can count – and I can count pretty high.” She says, smirking again, and Charon stares at her silently, weighing what she’s telling him.

She puts a hand on his shoulder, squeezing a bit. “You’re no one else’s but yours, Char. Damn, I just wanted to do something nice.”  
“I’m not-“ he groans tiredly, baring his teeth as he clenches them together. “I serve whoever buys the contract. I kill, I scout, I protect. I don’t get to argue about the rules.” He says firmly as he extends the contract towards her one more time.  
“Well, guess what? I’m not playing along your dumb rules!” she retorts, placing her hands on her hips.

“You have to.”  
“No, I don’t! And neither do you!” she clenches her fists, grunting in frustration.  
“Sometimes, I swear, you really make me wanna punch you!” “Physical violence invalidates our contract.” When she hears him mechanically say that again for the millionth time she pushes him with a roar; although she is too little to have enough strength to push someone as big as him around, he takes one step back, at least out of respect.

“Stop behaving like a robot! I know you have a will!” she screams, angrily staring at him. “You don’t want me to treat you like a slave? Then stop doing this!”  
There’s disappointment in her eyes as she backs in the room, turning around with a loud sigh and leaning against her desk, her gaze hanging low.

Without muttering a word, she extends a hand towards him, silently waiting to be handed back the contract: Charon immediately gives it back to her, poorly masking his relief at Lone’s acceptance.  
She unfolds it and starts skimming through the lines again: she had read it so many times she almost knew it by memory, yet she had found no clauses that would have convinced his employee to tear the damn paper in halves and finally be free.

“Look, if it was just up to me I would have already burnt the damn thing, but I know you… need to deal with this first.” She lowers the contract, looks up to him.  
“What if we started with something little? What if I gave you a day off? What would you do?”  
He thinks about it for a second, what was left of his eyebrows slightly crooking. “I’d remain to protect the house.”  
She replies with a deep sigh, sucking her lower lip inside her mouth before trying again. “Alright, what about outdoors? In the salon, in the Wastelands-”  
“I’d remain to protect the city.” He monotonously replies.  
Lone stares at him for a couple of seconds before closing her eyes and slightly shaking her head “I’m too tired for this.” She steps towards the bed, turning around and pointing her index towards him. “We… we’re not over. We’re picking this again tomorrow. But right now I need my beauty sleep.” She sarcastically mumbles as she flops back into bed.

Charon stares at her getting back underneath the blankets before turning around and standing in front of the threshold, looking towards the lower floor. He hears Maya exhaling deeply. “God… what are you doing there now?”  
“I’m guarding the place.”  
There’s a moment of silence before she exasperatedly asks “Why??”, possibly more to a deity than to him.  
“You asked me what I wanted. This is what I want.”  
“Look, it’s _way too late_ to talk about this.” She says, turning towards the other side of the bed.

He heard her shuffle for a few more minutes, then she sighed and asked. “Aren’t you tired? At all?”  
“I can’t sleep.” There’s silence in the room. Like she’s just realized something she might have been disregarding until right now.  
“Char, why don’t you come here? You’ll make guard all the same even in my bed.” She murmurs, patting on the mattress.

She holds the blanket up until he decides to sit in the bed with her. It doesn’t really feel so right but he complies anyway. Maya had never noticed how large he was until she realized her bed was too small for the both of them.  
She laughed a bit at that, laid her head on his chest and her arm across his stomach, loosely hugging him (and mostly using his as a pillow – luckily enough, he was the meatiest ghoul of the whole Wastelands).

“There you go. Just sleep.” She lowers her eyelids, fighting back sleep until she had made sure Charon was getting his as well, but as she waits, feeling his chest raising and lowering steadily, she realizes he is still awake: she looks up at him, realizing he had been staring at the ceiling for the whole time.  
Her hand reaches for the side of his face, caressing his cheek tenderly, letting her fingertips be lightly grazed by his tattered skin.  
He inhales sharply, his crazy ghoul eyes setting on her face: that was the look of someone who had lived too long to care about sleepless nights.

Lone knows she can’t fix things, but he had made her feel better before, and she was determined to return the favor.  
Before he can protest, she has already climbed up his body and pressed her lips against his: she kisses him softly, briefly, before parting a little, looking straight at his icy eyes, silently scowling him for not kissing her back.  
His eyes look down at her curled lips before he closes the gap between them again, his long arms enveloping around her lithe form, one around her shoulder and the other down, on her ass, squeezing lightly, enjoying her moaning against his charred mouth.

He wants to roll her underneath him more than anything, deepen the kiss, press her against the mattress, but he knows that if he finds himself too close to the junction of her thighs the step to screw up their supposedly professional relationship would be very short.  
Her hands press against his chest, feeling his muscles through his thin dark shirt. One of her hand temptingly tries to go lower, but as soon as it passes his navel she feels his whole body stiffen against hers, and Maya draws it back before Char starts protesting again.

“You don’t have to do this.” He murmurs, cupping her cheek.  
“But I like it.” She presses her lips against his again, her tongue massaging his, enjoying far too much its odd texture.  
She sighs contentedly, a little smile on her lips as she speaks “You don’t scare me, Char. Actually, I do quite like you.” He leans back, looking at her face, trying to decide whether she means that or not.

She leans against his chest with a soft sigh, her head resting on his pecs. “’Night Charon.”  
“Goodnight mistress.” He mechanically replies, feeling shortly after Lone tugging at his shirt, and he can only exhale deeply as he complies.  
“…Maya.”  
“That’s better.” She smiles.

His arm wraps around her tiny form, and she hums as she shuffles closer to his body in her sleep.  
He sighs deeply, finally trying to close his eyes just as she had told him to do, and for the first time in years he managed to spend a whole night (alright, only half; it’s still a record though) peacefully sleeping.


End file.
